december2022january2023 - 4

FROM THE EDITOR
If I Were the IRS Commissioner...
ONE OF THE most prominent complaints we hear regarding why people are reluctant to
join the accounting profession is that the hours are grueling, particularly during what we
lovingly refer to as busy season. When I started as a shiny new accountant, I spent my
first three years at Deloitte in exchange for the right to be licensed as a CPA.
At that time, in my home state of Illinois, in
addition to passing the CPA exam, one needed
to log three years in public accounting in order
to get that license. Now, Illinois only requires
one year of experience to be licensed, and an
accountant can be a Certified Public Accountant
without ever having worked in public accounting.
Times change.
It wasn't just three years of full-time work.
Busy season in the tax department meant we
started working Saturdays the first week of January
and continued through the middle of April.
We worked long days during the week - usually
until 9 or 10 p.m. each night (although sometimes
on Fridays we would call it a day around 7 p.m.
and all go out for pizza - it was Chicago, after
all). Often as the March and April deadlines
approached, we would work Sundays as well.
Most of us would log at least one or two 100+
hour weeks during the spring.
Exhausting? Sure. But grueling? Not really.
There was a sense of camaraderie in our office.
We were all in it together and that made it easy
to put in the hours. We were a team, a pack,
a group that cared about each other like an
extended family, and we all had each other's
backs. We laughed about the long hours, about
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the food crumbs all over our desks where we ate
most of our meals, about the piles of file folders
that covered our office floors (this was in the
pre-paperless era).
But that was then, and just like the CPA
licensing requirements that change, so too do
people's attitudes about how, and how much,
they are willing to work. And so, getting back to
the title of this editor's note, if I were running
the IRS, I would look to the model set out by the
motor vehicle bureaus in the states. In my state,
as well as in many if not all other states, your
license plate is due for renewal in a particular
month of the year, depending on the first letter
of your last name.
If the IRS were to change its filing dates so
that 1/12 of the taxpayers had tax returns due
each month, instead of 100% of the taxpayers
having tax returns due in the same month,
accountants could spread out their tax work
over the course of the year instead of having
to try to get it all done in the spring. Furthermore,
the government would have a steady
stream of revenue all year. It seems like a
win-win situation.
There would be problems - such as
how would we do estimates and extensions
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- and the transition would be difficult, but it
wouldn't be impossible and it would probably
be worthwhile.
Interestingly, I suspect there would be those
accountants who so embrace working long hours
that they would just take on more clients so it
would be busy season all year long, instead of
keeping the same workload as before and spreading
it out over 12 months. But for those who crave
stability in their work life, it just might be a good
solution. ■
4 DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 ■ www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
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